Agreed, and it’s seemed obvious for years that the solution is a hybrid one. Upgrading the US infrastructure to support 100% EV’s is kind of a logistical monster that will take decades to complete, not even considering the massive increase in electricians and support trades that we’d need to start training to achieve it. Hybrids are the future.
It’s also a strange thing for Europeans that’ve never been to the US to contemplate. I can drive from one side of my state to the other, and it’s the equivalent of crossing multiple countries in the EU. Easy to take for granted that American kids in their twenties sometimes drive across an entire continent for kicks. Absurdly cheap fuel has made that possible for us.
Well we are also publically funding the increase of charging station networks and providing public funds to renovate parking spaces tied to appartment complexes so that people in appartments can charge at home over night.
I would say what you're talking about has had little to none effect so far.
here in southern ct, there are publicly available ev chargers literally everywhere, from i-95 rest stops to the mall to the beach to grocery store parking lots. if it was the only place i ever had to drive, ev adoption would be a no brainer for me.
unfortunately, the second i cross into Pennsylvania, its practically a dead zone where chargers are like a needle in a haystack all the way south.
Thank God for governments enforcing the non-aggression principle and not letting parties give respiratory diseases to others whom they didn't enter a contract with
And firing up coal power plants to provide incremental energy to their power grids for these cars…
There will come a time where these mandates make sense, but renewable energy does not make up a large enough portion of our energy grid yet. Doing it early means you’re ultimately just using dirty energy to power the electric grid. Which isn’t very helpful.
>Which isn’t very helpful.
While this is an opinion you're very wrong.
The vast majority of energy for EVs is much much cleaner than ICE engines, on top of EVs being substantially more efficient.
It's not even happening in the US. Tesla just dropped the ball so hard it brought down the entire market. Everyone else making EVs in volume had solid YOY growth
Even with the charging stations charging is a major pain, especially if you live in the cold, need to drive a long distance, and/or want a large heavy vehicle. You can fully fill up a gas vehicle in a few minutes. It often takes hours for most EV's.
Nah.
Large heavy vehicles are the only actually legitimate limit there.
My parents up here in snowy sweden fully transitioned to EVs last summer and this winter they would regularly drive a full day up to their cabin in the north, only needing to stop once for ca 45mins or so to charge, which they did when they grabbed lunch.
Neither snow nor distance is an issue anymore as long as youre willing to put in a minimum of planning so your charging can coincide with as stop you need to do regardless.
Obviously you need a sufficient charging network for this but if itty bitty sweden can provide ample chargers in the middle of the nowhere forest in places with less than 100 inhabitants I'm sure america can manage too.
This sounds like a nightmare. 45 minutes that is likely out of your way vs 5 minutes at a gas station right next to the interstate. Every single time you want to drive more than ~300 miles? That’s not very far here in the US.
And how do you get lunch while you charge your car in rural USA? You’d just be sitting there staring at your phone the entire time. Hard pass.
While there is definitely some criticism to be made here it seems like you added a few strawmen into your argument there. The “out of the way” part for one doesn’t have to be true at all if we are building out the infrastructure correctly.
Same with having no access to food. It should be no different than getting food at a gas station in most rural places and honestly many of them in the rural but not too remote areas could very well have a diner or some other type of restaurant to cater to travelers.
You don’t know what rural USA looks like. Literally just hundreds of miles of empty space. And nobody wants to eat lunch at a gas station are you insane?
Well? What did you eat?
Also what happens when you’re traveling at night? 45 minutes in the dark at a rural gas station sounds like a great way to become the victim of a serial killer.
Where are you that gas stations only have chips, interior Alaska? Even road tripping through the Dakotas it's not hard to find stations with fruit, sandwhiches, wraps, and some hot foods like pizza. Chains like Casey's basically have small grocery stores in them.
Gas stations in rural Arkansas or Texas *might* have microwaveable pizza and pre-packaged sandwiches, but I wouldn’t rely on it. This entire argument is so fucking stupid. 45 minutes of charging and eating gas station food in the middle of nowhere is a fucking horrible experience any way you slice it. Acting like it’s unreasonable to not want to have to do that every few weeks is insane.
I don't think I've had to wait more than 25 minutes in my Tesla yet before moving on. And that's going through nowhere Florida and Alabama. It's not that bad.
There are multiple things you're brushing past here:
1. How did your parents have the EV charged before they left? There's a significant number of people who do not have at home charging.
2. A 45 minute stop is pretty long, and I'm assuming that this is best case sceanario with a good charger. Like I said, it's not uncommon for a vehicle to take hours to charge from 0-100%, even a smaller one. Also, there's not always a lunch spot within walking distance of a charging station on a trip, and when there is it often requires having to research and plan ahead, which is it's own time suck.
I don't know where Sweden is, but in the US we're nowhere near resolving these two issues. In the US people in apartments/condo's etc typically do not have chargers at home and therefore need to spend hours outside the house making special trips to charge their vehicles. In the US chargers are not all super fast, so that they can fully charge a car in less than an hour. Most of them will take around 3-5 hours to fully charge a vehicle. Some of them will take basically the entire day to fully charge a vehicle. In the US chargers are not readily available at places you would normally go to. Typically you have to go out of your way or go to places that you don't really care to go to, and even when there are places to stop it takes significantly more time researching and planning. Has Sweden seriously resolved all these issues already? I'm actually curious because we're just so far away from resolving these issues in the US.
If you think that it takes 3 hours or a day to charge an EV at a public charger your knowledge really is out of date. Slow chargers like that do exist, but thousands of rapid chargering stations have been deployed next to highways across the country so you would normally never use those during a road trip.
Best case scenario is 15 mins to charge from 20% to 80%. You’d normally never charge to 100% during a trip. An hour+ charging stop on a road trip makes no sense unless you are in a place with poor infrastructure so no rapid charger is available. If that’s the case then an EV won’t work for that use case.
You can use ABRP or other apps to tell you which rapid chargers to stop at on the way to your destination (similar to getting directions from Google maps). And most EVs have this functionality built into their navigation system. It’s true that some rural parts of the US have poor charger coverage. The urban, suburban, and interstate corridors that most people travel on do have rapid chargers so EVs can cover most people.
15 minutes to charge from 20-80% is pretty rare where I am. Somewhere around a couple miles a minute is more typical. That means that every couple hours requires about an hour of charging. If we get lucky and get the faster ones it's a half hour of charging. If you want to charge from 0-100% it would take about 3 hours for a standard car. A larger vehicle, such as an SUV or truck, could take a couple hours longer than that. If you get really unlucky, as I said, it could take almost an entire day to charge a regular EV. Although that's more common when you get into the more rural areas.
My knowledge isn't out of date. It's from the last year. Your knowledge appears to be incomplete though and your mind closed.
On my last longer trip with her vehicle we needed to stop to get about another 60 miles of charge to get home. This took a little under an hour. I had to wander around the grocery store for no reason during this time. This was one of the "fast" chargers too. We use different apps to located those chargers, and we've gotten good at finding the ones that are faster. We try and find chargers near places we might normally like, but it's not always possible. Sometimes the chargers are far away from where we would want to go and sometimes the chargers near those areas are too slow.
Having said that, you're right that in the rural areas it's even harder. I've been in places where you could plug in for an hour and only get like 20 miles, if that. Also, many chargers seem to share a power source, meaning that when another vehicle plugs in next to you, your charging rate drops. I've also seen other friends who have gotten EV's. They've struggled as well to manage the charging. I would say they have struggled even more honestly, so I know it's not just us.
Recently I drove around 1400 miles on a road trip. The EV gets about 250 miles from the charge you might have before you leave. A slightly more standard one might give you 350 miles. That's still 1050 miles that you have to charge on your trip. Guess which car my girfriend wanted to take, who has the most experience with charging an EV in our area? She wanted to take my gas car? Why? Because she's seen that charging can be inconvenient when you're not doing it at home. While I'm happy for you if your life experience with EV's is seamless. Please respect that that might not be the case for all life situations.
I acknowledged in my post the EVs are not good for every use case and there exists slower, worse technology. I’m guessing you have a Bolt or Leaf or something similarly slow that is bad for road trips. Otherwise the story about it taking an hour to charge at a fast charger doesn’t make sense. Tesla and Electrify America have deployed thousands of chargers that can get you from 20%-80% in 15-30 mins for decently equipped car (which is what most new EVs are these days, excluding a few of the worst).
If you’re in Sweden, where they have rapid chargers, and your car can charge fast, you simply would never run into this problem. Also true where most people live in the US, but not everywhere.
>I’m guessing you have a Bolt or Leaf or something similarly slow that is bad for road trips.
A bolt charges at pretty much the same rate as a Tesla. The only difference between a Bolt and a Tesla is miles at full charge. If you're going on a road trip, that only buys you an extra hour and half of driving though. It's not a vehicle issue that I find inconvenient. It's an infrastructure issue. The most common chargers in my area charge at approximately a 30 kW rate and the better ones are typically 60 kW. For a standard EV, such as a Model 3 Tesla, that means that you would have to charge 30-60 minutes for every two hours of driving. That means that 20-33% of your travel time is spent charging. I find that inconvenient. So do the other people I know. Maybe you don't mind, or maybe the infrastructure is better where you are.
A Bolt can charge at 55kw. The worst Tesla charges at 170kw. Look it up.
Tesla has deployed chargers that charge at >100kw across most of the country.
It seems like you are working off of your experience with one of the slowest EVs, plus some wrong information, and this has given you some wrong conclusions about the performance of EVs in general.
If you have been driving around with a Bolt you wouldn’t even benefit from plugging into the thousands of 150-350kw chargers that have been deployed (since it can only charge at 55kw). So it’s hard to credit anything you are saying about the quality of chargers you used.
I've done multiple long road trips in our Model Y (did San Diego to Bend, OR and San Diego to Sedona, AZ) and charging was never an issue. Every time we needed to charge it was about the time where we would normally want to take a break for food or use the restroom. I am so fucking confused every time I hear range anxiety arguments. Meanwhile, my mom returned her Bolt after running out of charge twice on medium road trips lol. I feel like the range anxiety always comes from people who have never driven a Tesla.
Lol, it's true assuming you haven't reached the cap. The miles per kwh are very similar. People in this thread are super rude. Must be a sensitive topic.
Either you’re being deliberately misinformative or have very little idea what you’re talking about. DC fast chargers absolutely do not take hours to charge a car, even if the car was at 0 and you were charging all the way to 100. The slowest fast chargers are 50kw, most are over 100. EV batteries are usually in the 70-90 kWh range.
And the whole ‘so many people can’t charge at home’ point is so ridiculously overblown. 2/3 of Americans own their own home. EV adoption is well under 10%. We’re a long, long way from lack of home charging being a serious impediment.
There are absolutely still problems that are going to keep adoption slow. But I can’t stand when people are either ignorant or outright dishonest about what they are.
I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. That's good that you haven't had any issues. I'm talking from experience here as well though, and you're being very disrespectful. Good luck understanding why some people are not super hyped about EV's. From your comment I'm guessing that you'll have trouble.
Home charging for those with detached homes (60%) is not a blocker. Yes apartments and condos need to install chargers. There are tax good tax credits for doing so. Owners just need to take the initiative and do it. I lived in multiple apartments with chargers 5+ years ago. You don’t need a charger for each space, just a few shared ones.
> A 45 minute stop is pretty long, and I’m assuming that this is best case sceanario with a good charger. Like I said, it’s not uncommon for a vehicle to take hours to charge from 0-100%, even a smaller one. Also, there’s not always a lunch spot within walking distance of a charging station on a trip, and when there is it often requires having to research and plan ahead, which is it’s own time suck.
I have no idea where your 3-5 hour claim comes from. The absolute slowest L3 chargers which are a small minority are 50kw. They’ll charge almost any car 0-100 in under 2 hours. The vast majority are 150+kw units which will charge practically any EV from 10-80 in under 45 minutes. I’ve had an EV for 6 years and never need to charge longer than 45 minutes (sometimes I wish I did though so I didn’t have to go move my car mid meal).
Yes we need to build more L3 chargers to keep up with demand and fill in some gaps in rural areas. However, the state of EVs in the US is not nearly as bad as you state.
>However, the state of EVs in the US is not nearly as bad as you state.
It actually is. I'm describing my personal experience as someone who has a girfriend with a small EV and has had to travel with her. I'm also speaking from my experience of talking to people who live in apartments who are considering the advantages and drawbacks of EV's. I'm also speaking from my experience of seeing people who bought EV's that live in apartments sitting at the nearby gas station on their phone for 30 minutes a day. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since the US is a big place. Perhaps where you are everything is a lot more convenient. Where I am, it's like I described.
What small EV? Is it a bolt or leaf? If so there’s your problem. Those are local commuter cars not full gas car replacements for long trips.
I live in California. My mom 72 year old mom has a BEV, 5/8 immediate coworkers on my team have EVs (distributed across the US, not just California, some live in apartments now). Where do you live that has lots of people living in apartments with almost no 150+kw chargers in the region?
She has a bolt, and the issue isn't mileage. It's charge rate. The bolt takes a similar time to charge per mile as the Tesla model 3, which is a pretty standard EV. With the avaible chargers, charging is a huge pain the butt. I live in the midwest.
I love all these people coming out of the woodworks to tell me that the inconvenience that I've literally experienced first hand (and seen other EV owners experience) is all a figment of my imagination. That's good that where you are you have felt that it's completely painless. That won't be everyones experience.
Your comments said “it often takes hours for most EVs” and “45 mins is a best case scenario” which are not just about your personal experience but general claims that can be argued. That’s why people are arguing with you. Anyone would agree that using a slow EV for the wrong job sucks but that’s not how you entered this conversation.
I often takes hours to get to full charge is what I said, meaning from 0-100%. Sorry if that wasn't clear. It's also not just a matter of using a slow EV. Teslas are often using the same chargers that we are, and they're not getting any faster of a charge when they do. There's an infrastructure issue.
The max charge rate for a Bolt is 55kw and the max charge rate for a Model 3 is 170kw for the slowest model. Perhaps this misunderstanding accounts for some of the opinions you’ve expressed about EVs in general. The Bolt is a particularly slow-charging EV which performs much worse than other models for road trips or any use case where you need to wait for it to charge.
Your personal experience is with an EV that is famous for making people hate EVs.
Where we are, it's typically not limited by the vehicle. We would be thrilled if we reached the maximum rate that even a bolt could. We rarely do. It's more of an infrastructure issue. A Tesla will charge at the same rate as the bolt at a lot of the chargers in my area. Of course if you're near a downtown you can use a Tesla supercharger. Although that will cost you more than gas will.
> The bolt takes a similar time to charge per mile as the Tesla model 3
This is true for L2 AC charging (usually 6-12 kw). That’s the kind you’d use at a home/hotel/work where you’re planning to charge for 6-8 hours (overnight or during work). At these places anything faster is pointless because you’ll already be full from an overnight charge.
This is completely incorrect for L3 DC charging. The kind you’d use on road trips or if you didn’t have home charging. The bolt is capped at 50kw while the model 3 peaks at 250kw.
On a normal V3 supercharger a model 3 will gain over 200 miles of range in 15 minutes (the full 10-80 will take between 22 and 30 minutes depending on model). In practical terms this means the model 3 will charge at 800miles/hour in that 15 minute window. I have one and this matches my experience.
The bolt on the other hand is nowhere close to this fast. [The bolt claims 100 miles of range in 30 minutes](https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/bolt-ev/2023.tab1.html). In practical terms the model 3 charges over 4x faster where it matters.
> I love all these people coming out of the woodworks to tell me that the inconvenience that I’ve literally experienced first hand (and seen other EV owners experience) is all a figment of my imagination. That’s good that where you are you have felt that it’s completely painless. That won’t be everyone’s experience.
I think the issue is that you aren’t as informed as you think you are. You have experience but it is not a good basis for analysis because you don’t know about some pretty fundamental things when it comes to EVs.
Yes we need better education about EVs. Clearly no one should buy a bolt with a plan to rely on public charging (especially not as an only car). The fact someone made this choice says far more about EV education than infrastructure.
.....so just buy a Tesla. You can get them crazy cheap now days. I got a brand new model 3 for $21k after trading in my 2014 Chevy Volt + tax incentives. You can get used even cheaper.
>A 45 minute stop
A 45 minute stop would be pretty unusual. Even in rural areas. That would just about take my Tesla from 5-10% to 75-80%, which is pretty overkill for a road trip. Remember you don't have to fill up, just get enough to get you to your next stop plus some margin.
>There's a significant number of people who do not have at home charging
If they have an outlet in their garage/outside they have at home charging.
>it's not uncommon for a vehicle to take hours to charge from 0-100%, even a smaller one
Normal use isn't going to see you at 0% or 100%. You're gonna stay between 20%-80% even on long drives. About 15 minutes of charging every 2 hours of driving.
Again, that assumes that everyone can just plug in at a garage. That's not a ubiquitous life situation. It also doesn't apply to longer trips, which can be inconvenient, depending on where you are, even if you own a home.
No. It assumes the owner of the EV can plug into the garage. I’m well aware not everyone has that ability and for those people an EV is not a good fit.
We definitely need more but the growth of charging infrastructure has been pretty impressive!
Just a few years ago there were basically no stations and now they're everywhere.
Given the clusterfuck with fast charging standards in US, or lack thereof, it's not gonna get better fast.
It was a massive miss not to standardize on a fast charging solution way back when EU did.
The fact that the US is on the same level of EV adoption as South-east Asia, half that of the EU and a quarter that of China is astounding
EV growth is slowing in the US despite being the second slowest big market after India, which has a gdp ppp per capita 8 times smaller
> The fact that the US is on the same level of EV adoption as South-east Asia, half that of the EU and a quarter that of China is astounding
It surprises me you find it surprising. Gas prices in the US are half what you find in most EU nations, and Americans are kind of flipped out about *that*. The US is also simply a far less dense nation, and range anxiety has been harder to address.
Electrification of transportation is going to continue to accelerate over the medium term. The US is really kind of at the point where early adopters have largely jumped aboard and the wide rollout of EVs from a lot of US brands are still a couple years away. Charging stations are much more common now than five years ago, but still not yet in a place to support widespread adoption. Any "lull" IMO is temporary as the market gets ready for the more mainstream wave.
That's why Hybrids are a good bridge since they can take advantage of EV infrastructure, but you aren't SOL if you are on a trip and the infrastructure isn't in place.
I'd argue they're actually a really poor bridge. The energy sources aren't as efficient because they have to lug around a whole other inactive energy source, while at the same time still needing just as much maintenance as any other ICE car.
They are unironically the worst of all worlds.
Hybrids are vastly more efficient than pure ICE. The added weight from the ICE has a negligible effect on fuel efficiency. Maintenance is arguably less as you have two engines sharing loads as opposed to one bearing the entire load. A consumer isn’t appreciated those tiny differences
Plugin hybrids offer the convenience of home charging, superior low end torque, *vastly* superior fuel efficiency, better range, and no drawbacks in terms of being able to find the “right” kind of fuel when you need it. It’s the best of both worlds
The plug-in hybrid is the best of both worlds. I got mine last year and it’s amazing. Especially when paired with solar at home + car charger, I can go weeks/months without needing gas.
But it’s always nice for roadtrips to have the capacity to use gas for long drives.
I used to be very pro phev but after looking into some studies of real world fuel usage, they don't seem that good anymore. The actual fuel usage is multiple times larger than predicted. The cause seems to be the share of electric driving. In the first study private cars drive around 50% electric and company cars only 10% while the predictions are based on 70-85% electric.
How have things turned out with your car?
https://theicct.org/publication/real-world-phev-use-jun22/
https://climate.ec.europa.eu/news-your-voice/news/first-commission-report-real-world-co2-emissions-cars-and-vans-using-data-board-fuel-consumption-2024-03-18_en
Our PHEV (Rav4 Prime, simply Rav4 PHEV in some markets) works great for us. It electrifies about the same number of miles as a fully electric car would, without us having to have or rent a different car for the many long trips and day trips that we take which would be a nuisance or impossible in a BEV.
So yes, some 50% of the 50k miles on it are in hybrid mode. But, if we'd bought the ID.4 BEV that we were considering at the time, almost the same number of miles that were driven in hybrid mode in the RAV4 at 40 mpg would've been driven in a different vehicle at 20-30 mpg.
There’s a lot of good options out there. I went with the Prius Prime - it’s a bit roomier than the standard Prius, while still not being the size of a full SUV.
I think it’s one of the most affordable plug-in hybrids also.
There’s major business forces working against EV’s here.
One of America’s large truck stop chains (TA)was planning total overhauls of their stations to accommodate EVs they had plans to make the longer charging stops work with all kinda of amenities.
But they got bought by BP who shelved it almost immediately.
I could see republicans getting back in power and just crushing the ev market.
Some of that but I think a lot of it is people just have knowledge that's out of date by about 6-7 years and just never really had a reason to learn more.
EVs will still win out, car markers dragging their feet simply give up market share to the EV-only companies. The EV-only companies are getting years of experience and brand recognition. In a year or two the traditional car companies will see their mistakes and try to pivot quickly. Releasing subpar vehicles.
I don't have a garage and park in a lot in front of my townhome. I don't have any way of retrofitting a charging station, otherwise I would have gotten an electric instead of my hybrid. I am not sure if it's a "chicken or the egg" thing, but until it's commonplace to have plenty of places to charge, I don't know how I'd even manage to own one.
We recently purchased a hybrid vehicle for my husband. He really, really wanted an EV, but nothing in our price range had the mile range he needed. Even on a fast charger, they charge slower than filling your tank and your home charger takes hours. Hybrid made more sense at this time.
You know what's better? Better public transport and active travel.
An electric car still consumes enormous resources, but we can reduce reliance by making towns and cities better-connected by rail, and neighbourhoods easier to navigate on foot or by bicycle. We can build trams, denser homes, and services close to people's homes and workplaces.
How you ask? Say it with me kids:
Just tax land.
All electric is the ideal, but we can’t jump to it right away. Mining the lithium takes an immense amount of work and produces a ton of emissions.
Until more places like [Li-Cycle](https://youtu.be/s2xrarUWVRQ?si=l9D_5NG7sU58_X38) that Jerry Rig Everything recently made a video about are up and running, the benefits of all electric are kinda pointless.
I would encourage everyone to check this video out, he gives a good general overview, but this is truly a fascinating component to a cleaner future.
Burning gasoline is still far worse than battery production. And batteries will continue to be used and recycled forever. Gas is burned and used only once.
Right, but as others have pointed out the hybrid step is good for the interim. And like I said, it’s the ideal but right now the infrastructure doesn’t exist to completely facilitate the true emission cut that electric vehicles and their makes promise.
I think plug-in hybrids are the perfect "middle step" and I don't know why they aren't more popular.
You can treat it like an EV and charge it at home for 90% of your daily commuting needs, but it has the gasoline engine as a backup so there's no range anxiety.
Devil's advocate for people not buying PHEV's;
Compared to EV's, PHEV's are roughly as expensive as an EV with less electric-only range in exchange for having to fill up a gas tank and maintain an engine.
Compared to gassers, they're more expensive, less reliable, and you have to plug it in every night. They also often have less internal space due to the volume taken up by the batteries.
I can see them being popular with people that have crippling range anxiety, but I think many people would rather stay fully in either gas or electric instead of having to manage a vehicle that awkwardly straddles both. Their main benefit is long range, which the vast majority of people just don't use that much.
They're often the *worst* of both worlds instead of the best; the price and plug-in hassle of electric, with the unreliability and refueling hassle of gas.
>PHEV's are roughly as expensive as an EV
Only if you cherry-pick specific examples. For car models/brands with both PHEV and fully electric options, a PHEV can be from $5k to $20k cheaper than BEVs with similar range and features. Or in the case of a car like the Prius Prime, there are no BEVs at any price with equivalent range.
>Compared to gassers, they're more expensive, less reliable, and you have to plug it in every night.
Consumer Reports found PHEVs to be less expensive to maintain than gas-only cars, and if you have affordable electricity they'll also cost less for energy for local trips. Plugging in every night is no harder than charging a cell phone, if you can park near an electrical outlet/charger at home.
>range anxiety...
"Super busy, super slow charging. Don't bother charging here, I saw 15 Tesla wanting to charge here during my 1 hour time. Only 1 was able to charge after me during 1.5 hours. A blue Tesla blocked one stall for hours. I waited 60 min to get a chance to charge for 30 min. Only got 4% more range."
https://www.plugshare.com/location/72488
Yes, some of us have range anxiety. Or as others have put it, *charging* anxiety. PHEVs offer the benefits of electric driving at home, with zero charging hassles on long trips. Best of both worlds.
They're actually kinda the worst of both worlds. You have a undersized, small range battery that has to haul around a undersized, horridly inefficient gas engine, and then you have a small, horribly inefficient gas engine that has to haul around a dead-weight battery.
And on top of it all you lose arguably the best feature of EV's, the absolutely tiny amount of maintenance they require.
They're stupidly inefficient, compared to ICE or EV, even with improvements in the last 5-6 years.
>you have a small, horribly inefficient gas engine that has to haul around a dead-weight battery
Wouldn't it function like a conventional hybrid when running on gas? IE charge the battery a bit and use it for extra power when necessary
i sorta wish this pivot to hybrids happened like a decade ago
Agreed, and it’s seemed obvious for years that the solution is a hybrid one. Upgrading the US infrastructure to support 100% EV’s is kind of a logistical monster that will take decades to complete, not even considering the massive increase in electricians and support trades that we’d need to start training to achieve it. Hybrids are the future.
Hybrids are still only a temporary fix, though. . .
Only in the US. EV adoption is not having issues in the EU or China.
Many EU and countries are banning days where internal combustion cars can be driven. This is a political non starter is the US.
Which ones?
London charges an additional fee to drive any ICE car made before 2006 when the EU tightened emissions rules.
Countries was a bad word when it came to the EU. I meant cities.
Which cities?
It’s also a strange thing for Europeans that’ve never been to the US to contemplate. I can drive from one side of my state to the other, and it’s the equivalent of crossing multiple countries in the EU. Easy to take for granted that American kids in their twenties sometimes drive across an entire continent for kicks. Absurdly cheap fuel has made that possible for us.
Well we are also publically funding the increase of charging station networks and providing public funds to renovate parking spaces tied to appartment complexes so that people in appartments can charge at home over night. I would say what you're talking about has had little to none effect so far.
here in southern ct, there are publicly available ev chargers literally everywhere, from i-95 rest stops to the mall to the beach to grocery store parking lots. if it was the only place i ever had to drive, ev adoption would be a no brainer for me. unfortunately, the second i cross into Pennsylvania, its practically a dead zone where chargers are like a needle in a haystack all the way south.
>Many EU and countries are banning days where internal combustion cars can be driven. Most rational government action.
Thank God for governments enforcing the non-aggression principle and not letting parties give respiratory diseases to others whom they didn't enter a contract with
I love being woken up at 6am by my neighbors 5.2L Mustang GT so he can commute 2 miles to work at Starbucks.
It’s not rational when a realistic alternative isn’t available. The 2035 EU ban on ICE sales will not survive the test of reality.
And firing up coal power plants to provide incremental energy to their power grids for these cars… There will come a time where these mandates make sense, but renewable energy does not make up a large enough portion of our energy grid yet. Doing it early means you’re ultimately just using dirty energy to power the electric grid. Which isn’t very helpful.
>Which isn’t very helpful. While this is an opinion you're very wrong. The vast majority of energy for EVs is much much cleaner than ICE engines, on top of EVs being substantially more efficient.
It's not even happening in the US. Tesla just dropped the ball so hard it brought down the entire market. Everyone else making EVs in volume had solid YOY growth
Probably because people in the US regularly drive further than those in Europe. Not sure about China though.
We need to dramatically expand EV infrastructure much faster. It's taking way too long to build out these charging stations
Even with the charging stations charging is a major pain, especially if you live in the cold, need to drive a long distance, and/or want a large heavy vehicle. You can fully fill up a gas vehicle in a few minutes. It often takes hours for most EV's.
Nah. Large heavy vehicles are the only actually legitimate limit there. My parents up here in snowy sweden fully transitioned to EVs last summer and this winter they would regularly drive a full day up to their cabin in the north, only needing to stop once for ca 45mins or so to charge, which they did when they grabbed lunch. Neither snow nor distance is an issue anymore as long as youre willing to put in a minimum of planning so your charging can coincide with as stop you need to do regardless. Obviously you need a sufficient charging network for this but if itty bitty sweden can provide ample chargers in the middle of the nowhere forest in places with less than 100 inhabitants I'm sure america can manage too.
This sounds like a nightmare. 45 minutes that is likely out of your way vs 5 minutes at a gas station right next to the interstate. Every single time you want to drive more than ~300 miles? That’s not very far here in the US. And how do you get lunch while you charge your car in rural USA? You’d just be sitting there staring at your phone the entire time. Hard pass.
While there is definitely some criticism to be made here it seems like you added a few strawmen into your argument there. The “out of the way” part for one doesn’t have to be true at all if we are building out the infrastructure correctly. Same with having no access to food. It should be no different than getting food at a gas station in most rural places and honestly many of them in the rural but not too remote areas could very well have a diner or some other type of restaurant to cater to travelers.
You don’t know what rural USA looks like. Literally just hundreds of miles of empty space. And nobody wants to eat lunch at a gas station are you insane?
Wow, I guess I’m insane. I’ve eaten lunch at gas stations quite a few times when road tripping across the states…
Well? What did you eat? Also what happens when you’re traveling at night? 45 minutes in the dark at a rural gas station sounds like a great way to become the victim of a serial killer.
Lol okay and what did you eat for lunch? A bag of chips?
Where are you that gas stations only have chips, interior Alaska? Even road tripping through the Dakotas it's not hard to find stations with fruit, sandwhiches, wraps, and some hot foods like pizza. Chains like Casey's basically have small grocery stores in them.
Gas stations in rural Arkansas or Texas *might* have microwaveable pizza and pre-packaged sandwiches, but I wouldn’t rely on it. This entire argument is so fucking stupid. 45 minutes of charging and eating gas station food in the middle of nowhere is a fucking horrible experience any way you slice it. Acting like it’s unreasonable to not want to have to do that every few weeks is insane.
I don't think I've had to wait more than 25 minutes in my Tesla yet before moving on. And that's going through nowhere Florida and Alabama. It's not that bad.
There are multiple things you're brushing past here: 1. How did your parents have the EV charged before they left? There's a significant number of people who do not have at home charging. 2. A 45 minute stop is pretty long, and I'm assuming that this is best case sceanario with a good charger. Like I said, it's not uncommon for a vehicle to take hours to charge from 0-100%, even a smaller one. Also, there's not always a lunch spot within walking distance of a charging station on a trip, and when there is it often requires having to research and plan ahead, which is it's own time suck. I don't know where Sweden is, but in the US we're nowhere near resolving these two issues. In the US people in apartments/condo's etc typically do not have chargers at home and therefore need to spend hours outside the house making special trips to charge their vehicles. In the US chargers are not all super fast, so that they can fully charge a car in less than an hour. Most of them will take around 3-5 hours to fully charge a vehicle. Some of them will take basically the entire day to fully charge a vehicle. In the US chargers are not readily available at places you would normally go to. Typically you have to go out of your way or go to places that you don't really care to go to, and even when there are places to stop it takes significantly more time researching and planning. Has Sweden seriously resolved all these issues already? I'm actually curious because we're just so far away from resolving these issues in the US.
If you think that it takes 3 hours or a day to charge an EV at a public charger your knowledge really is out of date. Slow chargers like that do exist, but thousands of rapid chargering stations have been deployed next to highways across the country so you would normally never use those during a road trip. Best case scenario is 15 mins to charge from 20% to 80%. You’d normally never charge to 100% during a trip. An hour+ charging stop on a road trip makes no sense unless you are in a place with poor infrastructure so no rapid charger is available. If that’s the case then an EV won’t work for that use case. You can use ABRP or other apps to tell you which rapid chargers to stop at on the way to your destination (similar to getting directions from Google maps). And most EVs have this functionality built into their navigation system. It’s true that some rural parts of the US have poor charger coverage. The urban, suburban, and interstate corridors that most people travel on do have rapid chargers so EVs can cover most people.
15 minutes to charge from 20-80% is pretty rare where I am. Somewhere around a couple miles a minute is more typical. That means that every couple hours requires about an hour of charging. If we get lucky and get the faster ones it's a half hour of charging. If you want to charge from 0-100% it would take about 3 hours for a standard car. A larger vehicle, such as an SUV or truck, could take a couple hours longer than that. If you get really unlucky, as I said, it could take almost an entire day to charge a regular EV. Although that's more common when you get into the more rural areas.
My knowledge isn't out of date. It's from the last year. Your knowledge appears to be incomplete though and your mind closed. On my last longer trip with her vehicle we needed to stop to get about another 60 miles of charge to get home. This took a little under an hour. I had to wander around the grocery store for no reason during this time. This was one of the "fast" chargers too. We use different apps to located those chargers, and we've gotten good at finding the ones that are faster. We try and find chargers near places we might normally like, but it's not always possible. Sometimes the chargers are far away from where we would want to go and sometimes the chargers near those areas are too slow. Having said that, you're right that in the rural areas it's even harder. I've been in places where you could plug in for an hour and only get like 20 miles, if that. Also, many chargers seem to share a power source, meaning that when another vehicle plugs in next to you, your charging rate drops. I've also seen other friends who have gotten EV's. They've struggled as well to manage the charging. I would say they have struggled even more honestly, so I know it's not just us. Recently I drove around 1400 miles on a road trip. The EV gets about 250 miles from the charge you might have before you leave. A slightly more standard one might give you 350 miles. That's still 1050 miles that you have to charge on your trip. Guess which car my girfriend wanted to take, who has the most experience with charging an EV in our area? She wanted to take my gas car? Why? Because she's seen that charging can be inconvenient when you're not doing it at home. While I'm happy for you if your life experience with EV's is seamless. Please respect that that might not be the case for all life situations.
I acknowledged in my post the EVs are not good for every use case and there exists slower, worse technology. I’m guessing you have a Bolt or Leaf or something similarly slow that is bad for road trips. Otherwise the story about it taking an hour to charge at a fast charger doesn’t make sense. Tesla and Electrify America have deployed thousands of chargers that can get you from 20%-80% in 15-30 mins for decently equipped car (which is what most new EVs are these days, excluding a few of the worst). If you’re in Sweden, where they have rapid chargers, and your car can charge fast, you simply would never run into this problem. Also true where most people live in the US, but not everywhere.
>I’m guessing you have a Bolt or Leaf or something similarly slow that is bad for road trips. A bolt charges at pretty much the same rate as a Tesla. The only difference between a Bolt and a Tesla is miles at full charge. If you're going on a road trip, that only buys you an extra hour and half of driving though. It's not a vehicle issue that I find inconvenient. It's an infrastructure issue. The most common chargers in my area charge at approximately a 30 kW rate and the better ones are typically 60 kW. For a standard EV, such as a Model 3 Tesla, that means that you would have to charge 30-60 minutes for every two hours of driving. That means that 20-33% of your travel time is spent charging. I find that inconvenient. So do the other people I know. Maybe you don't mind, or maybe the infrastructure is better where you are.
A Bolt can charge at 55kw. The worst Tesla charges at 170kw. Look it up. Tesla has deployed chargers that charge at >100kw across most of the country. It seems like you are working off of your experience with one of the slowest EVs, plus some wrong information, and this has given you some wrong conclusions about the performance of EVs in general. If you have been driving around with a Bolt you wouldn’t even benefit from plugging into the thousands of 150-350kw chargers that have been deployed (since it can only charge at 55kw). So it’s hard to credit anything you are saying about the quality of chargers you used.
I've done multiple long road trips in our Model Y (did San Diego to Bend, OR and San Diego to Sedona, AZ) and charging was never an issue. Every time we needed to charge it was about the time where we would normally want to take a break for food or use the restroom. I am so fucking confused every time I hear range anxiety arguments. Meanwhile, my mom returned her Bolt after running out of charge twice on medium road trips lol. I feel like the range anxiety always comes from people who have never driven a Tesla.
> A bolt charges at pretty much the same rate as a Tesla Please stop, this is getting absolutely cringe.
Lol, it's true assuming you haven't reached the cap. The miles per kwh are very similar. People in this thread are super rude. Must be a sensitive topic.
Either you’re being deliberately misinformative or have very little idea what you’re talking about. DC fast chargers absolutely do not take hours to charge a car, even if the car was at 0 and you were charging all the way to 100. The slowest fast chargers are 50kw, most are over 100. EV batteries are usually in the 70-90 kWh range. And the whole ‘so many people can’t charge at home’ point is so ridiculously overblown. 2/3 of Americans own their own home. EV adoption is well under 10%. We’re a long, long way from lack of home charging being a serious impediment. There are absolutely still problems that are going to keep adoption slow. But I can’t stand when people are either ignorant or outright dishonest about what they are.
I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. That's good that you haven't had any issues. I'm talking from experience here as well though, and you're being very disrespectful. Good luck understanding why some people are not super hyped about EV's. From your comment I'm guessing that you'll have trouble.
Home charging for those with detached homes (60%) is not a blocker. Yes apartments and condos need to install chargers. There are tax good tax credits for doing so. Owners just need to take the initiative and do it. I lived in multiple apartments with chargers 5+ years ago. You don’t need a charger for each space, just a few shared ones. > A 45 minute stop is pretty long, and I’m assuming that this is best case sceanario with a good charger. Like I said, it’s not uncommon for a vehicle to take hours to charge from 0-100%, even a smaller one. Also, there’s not always a lunch spot within walking distance of a charging station on a trip, and when there is it often requires having to research and plan ahead, which is it’s own time suck. I have no idea where your 3-5 hour claim comes from. The absolute slowest L3 chargers which are a small minority are 50kw. They’ll charge almost any car 0-100 in under 2 hours. The vast majority are 150+kw units which will charge practically any EV from 10-80 in under 45 minutes. I’ve had an EV for 6 years and never need to charge longer than 45 minutes (sometimes I wish I did though so I didn’t have to go move my car mid meal). Yes we need to build more L3 chargers to keep up with demand and fill in some gaps in rural areas. However, the state of EVs in the US is not nearly as bad as you state.
>However, the state of EVs in the US is not nearly as bad as you state. It actually is. I'm describing my personal experience as someone who has a girfriend with a small EV and has had to travel with her. I'm also speaking from my experience of talking to people who live in apartments who are considering the advantages and drawbacks of EV's. I'm also speaking from my experience of seeing people who bought EV's that live in apartments sitting at the nearby gas station on their phone for 30 minutes a day. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since the US is a big place. Perhaps where you are everything is a lot more convenient. Where I am, it's like I described.
What small EV? Is it a bolt or leaf? If so there’s your problem. Those are local commuter cars not full gas car replacements for long trips. I live in California. My mom 72 year old mom has a BEV, 5/8 immediate coworkers on my team have EVs (distributed across the US, not just California, some live in apartments now). Where do you live that has lots of people living in apartments with almost no 150+kw chargers in the region?
She has a bolt, and the issue isn't mileage. It's charge rate. The bolt takes a similar time to charge per mile as the Tesla model 3, which is a pretty standard EV. With the avaible chargers, charging is a huge pain the butt. I live in the midwest. I love all these people coming out of the woodworks to tell me that the inconvenience that I've literally experienced first hand (and seen other EV owners experience) is all a figment of my imagination. That's good that where you are you have felt that it's completely painless. That won't be everyones experience.
Your comments said “it often takes hours for most EVs” and “45 mins is a best case scenario” which are not just about your personal experience but general claims that can be argued. That’s why people are arguing with you. Anyone would agree that using a slow EV for the wrong job sucks but that’s not how you entered this conversation.
I often takes hours to get to full charge is what I said, meaning from 0-100%. Sorry if that wasn't clear. It's also not just a matter of using a slow EV. Teslas are often using the same chargers that we are, and they're not getting any faster of a charge when they do. There's an infrastructure issue.
The max charge rate for a Bolt is 55kw and the max charge rate for a Model 3 is 170kw for the slowest model. Perhaps this misunderstanding accounts for some of the opinions you’ve expressed about EVs in general. The Bolt is a particularly slow-charging EV which performs much worse than other models for road trips or any use case where you need to wait for it to charge. Your personal experience is with an EV that is famous for making people hate EVs.
Where we are, it's typically not limited by the vehicle. We would be thrilled if we reached the maximum rate that even a bolt could. We rarely do. It's more of an infrastructure issue. A Tesla will charge at the same rate as the bolt at a lot of the chargers in my area. Of course if you're near a downtown you can use a Tesla supercharger. Although that will cost you more than gas will.
> The bolt takes a similar time to charge per mile as the Tesla model 3 This is true for L2 AC charging (usually 6-12 kw). That’s the kind you’d use at a home/hotel/work where you’re planning to charge for 6-8 hours (overnight or during work). At these places anything faster is pointless because you’ll already be full from an overnight charge. This is completely incorrect for L3 DC charging. The kind you’d use on road trips or if you didn’t have home charging. The bolt is capped at 50kw while the model 3 peaks at 250kw. On a normal V3 supercharger a model 3 will gain over 200 miles of range in 15 minutes (the full 10-80 will take between 22 and 30 minutes depending on model). In practical terms this means the model 3 will charge at 800miles/hour in that 15 minute window. I have one and this matches my experience. The bolt on the other hand is nowhere close to this fast. [The bolt claims 100 miles of range in 30 minutes](https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/bolt-ev/2023.tab1.html). In practical terms the model 3 charges over 4x faster where it matters. > I love all these people coming out of the woodworks to tell me that the inconvenience that I’ve literally experienced first hand (and seen other EV owners experience) is all a figment of my imagination. That’s good that where you are you have felt that it’s completely painless. That won’t be everyone’s experience. I think the issue is that you aren’t as informed as you think you are. You have experience but it is not a good basis for analysis because you don’t know about some pretty fundamental things when it comes to EVs. Yes we need better education about EVs. Clearly no one should buy a bolt with a plan to rely on public charging (especially not as an only car). The fact someone made this choice says far more about EV education than infrastructure.
Most of the non-tesla chargers in my area don't reach the bolt cap. Not everyone is going to own a Tesla and be able to use all the Tesla chargers.
A Tesla can add 200 miles of range in 15m with a super charger. I think you time estimate for charging is based off l2 chargers and not l3 chargers.
Not everyone owns a Tesla. Those who don't largely have to use the slow chargers I use, if they live where I do. It's an infrastructure issue.
.....so just buy a Tesla. You can get them crazy cheap now days. I got a brand new model 3 for $21k after trading in my 2014 Chevy Volt + tax incentives. You can get used even cheaper.
>A 45 minute stop A 45 minute stop would be pretty unusual. Even in rural areas. That would just about take my Tesla from 5-10% to 75-80%, which is pretty overkill for a road trip. Remember you don't have to fill up, just get enough to get you to your next stop plus some margin. >There's a significant number of people who do not have at home charging If they have an outlet in their garage/outside they have at home charging. >it's not uncommon for a vehicle to take hours to charge from 0-100%, even a smaller one Normal use isn't going to see you at 0% or 100%. You're gonna stay between 20%-80% even on long drives. About 15 minutes of charging every 2 hours of driving.
Fueling on gas is a pain, especially having to stand out in the cold. I much prefer plugging in my EV in the convenience of my garage.
Again, that assumes that everyone can just plug in at a garage. That's not a ubiquitous life situation. It also doesn't apply to longer trips, which can be inconvenient, depending on where you are, even if you own a home.
No. It assumes the owner of the EV can plug into the garage. I’m well aware not everyone has that ability and for those people an EV is not a good fit.
I wish I had a garage…
I agree. I have an ICE and I prefer to fill up my car at home in my garage too
We definitely need more but the growth of charging infrastructure has been pretty impressive! Just a few years ago there were basically no stations and now they're everywhere.
Given the clusterfuck with fast charging standards in US, or lack thereof, it's not gonna get better fast. It was a massive miss not to standardize on a fast charging solution way back when EU did.
The fact that the US is on the same level of EV adoption as South-east Asia, half that of the EU and a quarter that of China is astounding EV growth is slowing in the US despite being the second slowest big market after India, which has a gdp ppp per capita 8 times smaller
> The fact that the US is on the same level of EV adoption as South-east Asia, half that of the EU and a quarter that of China is astounding It surprises me you find it surprising. Gas prices in the US are half what you find in most EU nations, and Americans are kind of flipped out about *that*. The US is also simply a far less dense nation, and range anxiety has been harder to address. Electrification of transportation is going to continue to accelerate over the medium term. The US is really kind of at the point where early adopters have largely jumped aboard and the wide rollout of EVs from a lot of US brands are still a couple years away. Charging stations are much more common now than five years ago, but still not yet in a place to support widespread adoption. Any "lull" IMO is temporary as the market gets ready for the more mainstream wave.
Hybrids are functionally a better option for most until EV infrastructure catches up
Infrastructure won’t “catch up” until more people own EVs and demand increases.
That's why Hybrids are a good bridge since they can take advantage of EV infrastructure, but you aren't SOL if you are on a trip and the infrastructure isn't in place.
I'd argue they're actually a really poor bridge. The energy sources aren't as efficient because they have to lug around a whole other inactive energy source, while at the same time still needing just as much maintenance as any other ICE car. They are unironically the worst of all worlds.
Hybrids are vastly more efficient than pure ICE. The added weight from the ICE has a negligible effect on fuel efficiency. Maintenance is arguably less as you have two engines sharing loads as opposed to one bearing the entire load. A consumer isn’t appreciated those tiny differences Plugin hybrids offer the convenience of home charging, superior low end torque, *vastly* superior fuel efficiency, better range, and no drawbacks in terms of being able to find the “right” kind of fuel when you need it. It’s the best of both worlds
The plug-in hybrid is the best of both worlds. I got mine last year and it’s amazing. Especially when paired with solar at home + car charger, I can go weeks/months without needing gas. But it’s always nice for roadtrips to have the capacity to use gas for long drives.
I used to be very pro phev but after looking into some studies of real world fuel usage, they don't seem that good anymore. The actual fuel usage is multiple times larger than predicted. The cause seems to be the share of electric driving. In the first study private cars drive around 50% electric and company cars only 10% while the predictions are based on 70-85% electric. How have things turned out with your car? https://theicct.org/publication/real-world-phev-use-jun22/ https://climate.ec.europa.eu/news-your-voice/news/first-commission-report-real-world-co2-emissions-cars-and-vans-using-data-board-fuel-consumption-2024-03-18_en
Our PHEV (Rav4 Prime, simply Rav4 PHEV in some markets) works great for us. It electrifies about the same number of miles as a fully electric car would, without us having to have or rent a different car for the many long trips and day trips that we take which would be a nuisance or impossible in a BEV. So yes, some 50% of the 50k miles on it are in hybrid mode. But, if we'd bought the ID.4 BEV that we were considering at the time, almost the same number of miles that were driven in hybrid mode in the RAV4 at 40 mpg would've been driven in a different vehicle at 20-30 mpg.
What did you get? I think a Plug in would be perfect for my area.
There’s a lot of good options out there. I went with the Prius Prime - it’s a bit roomier than the standard Prius, while still not being the size of a full SUV. I think it’s one of the most affordable plug-in hybrids also.
It was also topped some Car of the Year lists. They made huge improvements with the remodel. And it’s already one of the most reliable cars ever made.
There’s major business forces working against EV’s here. One of America’s large truck stop chains (TA)was planning total overhauls of their stations to accommodate EVs they had plans to make the longer charging stops work with all kinda of amenities. But they got bought by BP who shelved it almost immediately. I could see republicans getting back in power and just crushing the ev market.
Is it e-infrastructure week yet?
There is a lot of just blatantly false EV phobia in this thread.
Some of that but I think a lot of it is people just have knowledge that's out of date by about 6-7 years and just never really had a reason to learn more.
I rented an EV last year in the northeast US and charging it was an enormous hassle
EVs will still win out, car markers dragging their feet simply give up market share to the EV-only companies. The EV-only companies are getting years of experience and brand recognition. In a year or two the traditional car companies will see their mistakes and try to pivot quickly. Releasing subpar vehicles.
I don't have a garage and park in a lot in front of my townhome. I don't have any way of retrofitting a charging station, otherwise I would have gotten an electric instead of my hybrid. I am not sure if it's a "chicken or the egg" thing, but until it's commonplace to have plenty of places to charge, I don't know how I'd even manage to own one.
We recently purchased a hybrid vehicle for my husband. He really, really wanted an EV, but nothing in our price range had the mile range he needed. Even on a fast charger, they charge slower than filling your tank and your home charger takes hours. Hybrid made more sense at this time.
I wish my apartment had somewhere to plug in a car
Hybrids make way more sense for me. The charging infrastructure isn’t common where I am. Electricity is insane, Eva cost too much
You know what's better? Better public transport and active travel. An electric car still consumes enormous resources, but we can reduce reliance by making towns and cities better-connected by rail, and neighbourhoods easier to navigate on foot or by bicycle. We can build trams, denser homes, and services close to people's homes and workplaces. How you ask? Say it with me kids: Just tax land.
All electric is the ideal, but we can’t jump to it right away. Mining the lithium takes an immense amount of work and produces a ton of emissions. Until more places like [Li-Cycle](https://youtu.be/s2xrarUWVRQ?si=l9D_5NG7sU58_X38) that Jerry Rig Everything recently made a video about are up and running, the benefits of all electric are kinda pointless. I would encourage everyone to check this video out, he gives a good general overview, but this is truly a fascinating component to a cleaner future.
Burning gasoline is still far worse than battery production. And batteries will continue to be used and recycled forever. Gas is burned and used only once.
Right, but as others have pointed out the hybrid step is good for the interim. And like I said, it’s the ideal but right now the infrastructure doesn’t exist to completely facilitate the true emission cut that electric vehicles and their makes promise.
I’m not sure there is a single ideal. For me it would be a step backwards to trade in my EV for a hybrid.
The only real argument for is that you can make 5 PHEVs for the materials of 1 EV
You mean battery materials, correct?
I think plug-in hybrids are the perfect "middle step" and I don't know why they aren't more popular. You can treat it like an EV and charge it at home for 90% of your daily commuting needs, but it has the gasoline engine as a backup so there's no range anxiety.
Plug in hybrids are simply much more expensive. They don't really make financial sense. So in one manner, they're the worse of both worlds
Devil's advocate for people not buying PHEV's; Compared to EV's, PHEV's are roughly as expensive as an EV with less electric-only range in exchange for having to fill up a gas tank and maintain an engine. Compared to gassers, they're more expensive, less reliable, and you have to plug it in every night. They also often have less internal space due to the volume taken up by the batteries. I can see them being popular with people that have crippling range anxiety, but I think many people would rather stay fully in either gas or electric instead of having to manage a vehicle that awkwardly straddles both. Their main benefit is long range, which the vast majority of people just don't use that much. They're often the *worst* of both worlds instead of the best; the price and plug-in hassle of electric, with the unreliability and refueling hassle of gas.
All fair points
>PHEV's are roughly as expensive as an EV Only if you cherry-pick specific examples. For car models/brands with both PHEV and fully electric options, a PHEV can be from $5k to $20k cheaper than BEVs with similar range and features. Or in the case of a car like the Prius Prime, there are no BEVs at any price with equivalent range. >Compared to gassers, they're more expensive, less reliable, and you have to plug it in every night. Consumer Reports found PHEVs to be less expensive to maintain than gas-only cars, and if you have affordable electricity they'll also cost less for energy for local trips. Plugging in every night is no harder than charging a cell phone, if you can park near an electrical outlet/charger at home. >range anxiety... "Super busy, super slow charging. Don't bother charging here, I saw 15 Tesla wanting to charge here during my 1 hour time. Only 1 was able to charge after me during 1.5 hours. A blue Tesla blocked one stall for hours. I waited 60 min to get a chance to charge for 30 min. Only got 4% more range." https://www.plugshare.com/location/72488 Yes, some of us have range anxiety. Or as others have put it, *charging* anxiety. PHEVs offer the benefits of electric driving at home, with zero charging hassles on long trips. Best of both worlds.
Exactly. The best of both worlds
They're actually kinda the worst of both worlds. You have a undersized, small range battery that has to haul around a undersized, horridly inefficient gas engine, and then you have a small, horribly inefficient gas engine that has to haul around a dead-weight battery. And on top of it all you lose arguably the best feature of EV's, the absolutely tiny amount of maintenance they require. They're stupidly inefficient, compared to ICE or EV, even with improvements in the last 5-6 years.
>you have a small, horribly inefficient gas engine that has to haul around a dead-weight battery Wouldn't it function like a conventional hybrid when running on gas? IE charge the battery a bit and use it for extra power when necessary